


Crossing paths

by naye



Series: Days of living dangerously, happy [7]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Conversations, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-15 00:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5765299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naye/pseuds/naye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke and Cullen, and a brief moment to catch up in Skyhold</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossing paths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skuldchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuldchan/gifts).



> After all that happened in Kirkwall, Cullen and Hawke must have had so much to catch up on in Skyhold! Alas, there was no cut scene or conversation option to add any insight into how that happened - hence, this vignette.
> 
> This takes place in the same continuity as [No Safer Harbor](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5601436), which explains where Hawke stashed her Anders.

“Champion?” a voice calls from behind her, and Hawke startles, ducking her head as if she might still avoid detection. “Hawke, is that you?” The voice is familiar, and coming closer, so Hawke hastily shoves the sausage she had lifted from the Inquisition’s generous larder into a pocket under her armor before turning around.

“Cullen!” Hawke turns up the brightness of her smile a notch, because a good offense is the best defense. So much for avoiding any contact with the Inquisition leaders. The familiar blond figure is taking the steps up to the battlement in long strides, and as Hawke stuffs a stolen apple into a pouch she considers that maybe Varric should’ve found somewhere a little more private for her to camp out than the abandoned tower quarters.

“Does Cassandra know you’re here?” Cullen asks first thing as he joins Hawke up on the wall.

“Nice to see you too, Commander,” Hawke drawls.

“Hello, Hawke,” Cullen says, with that frowny smile she remembers. “Does she?”

Hawke winces. “Last I heard… yes.” It had been hard not to hear, even from up here. Hawke had been three more angry words away from stepping in to rescue Varric when the Inquisitor made a timely appearance.

“Ah,” Cullen says, his eyebrows climbing in concern, as his body automatically falls into something closer to battle stance.

Hawke makes a quick gesture. “No, it’s fine. Well. It’s not ‘fine’ fine, but I don’t think anyone’s getting murdered. Not anymore, thanks to your Inquisitor. Good sort, that one.”

Cullen’s very furry shoulders shifts as he relaxes. “Yes,” he nods. “I’m glad.”

Not keen on attracting the attention of every single sentry passing by, Hawke starts moving along the walkway, keeping away from the courtyard-side crenelations, and Cullen matches her step. Despite her intention to keep to herself here in the crazy fort the size of Hightown, she doesn’t mind his company. If Cullen hadn’t make the choice he did on that fateful day in the Gallows, things may well have gone far worse for Hawke and her friends.

“Congratulations on your, uh. Promotion?” Hawke says. She means the congratulations sincerely, but she’s not sure if becoming commander of an independent force after helping kill your Templar superior and getting kicked out of the Order is being upwardly mobile or just… desperate. “You’ve come a long way since Kirkwall.”

Cullen plants his palms the wall between the crenelations and looks down at the valley below, his eyes focused on some even more distant spot. “Yes,” he acknowledges, and hesitates. “I never… thanked you, for what you did with Meredith.”

Hawke snorts. “Well, you also didn’t hunt me down and kill me for what I did with Meredith, so that makes us even.”

“It was a bad time,” he says, meeting her eye briefly before turning to gaze out over the blinding white peaks. “I’ll always be sorry I didn’t do more to stop it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Hawke says, trying to quell her own gloomy musings on what she could have done better back then. “Your sword helped stop plenty, that day.”

Cullen nods thoughtfully, and looking at his profile in the sharp mountain light, Hawke realizes that despite looking a few years older, he’s… better, now. Worn, yes, but she’s never before had a conversation with him where she felt he wasn’t holding back; weighted down by the rules and orders imposed on him by those he must obey.

“But yes,” Hawke says, joining him in avoiding eye contact by drinking in the vastness of the view. “If we’d only known, back in Kirkwall…. So much could be different.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Cullen asks. “Because of… regrets?”

Getting personal now, was he? Well, Hawke can avoid a heartfelt talk she doesn’t want to have like nobody else. “More like because of Corypheus,” she says.

“Yes, Varric did mention your previous… experience.”

“Like how we killed him?” Hawke asks. She certainly isn’t going to volunteer because we freed him. From the corner of her eye, she can see Cullen give her an arch look, but mercifully he chooses not to engage. Hawke still makes a frustrated noise – she can’t help it. Having someone you thought you killed come back from the dead and break the world is… difficult to put aside. “He’s not going to get away with it. He’s not.”

Cullen nods. “I’m glad you’re here, Champion.”

Hawke laughs, strangely pleased to hear the old title – coming from him, it’s a well-earned honorific. “And glad I didn’t bring company, I bet.”

An amusing look of alarm flashes over Cullen’s features.“You don’t mean you’re still…” He pauses, searches for words.

“Sleeping with Anders?” Hawke suggests, and Cullen winces at the indelicacy. “After going through all that trouble to keep most of Thedas from killing him, and the rest from crowning him Mage-King of the world, it seems only fair that I get something in return.”

Cullen’s fair skin shows a gratifying amount of blush, spreading from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. “Uh,” he says, eloquently.

“Don’t worry,” Hawke says, “I left him somewhere safe.”

Cullen’s clearly torn between voicing his incredulity at the statement, and accidentally getting more intimate confidences from Hawke. “I… find that a bit hard to picture,” he says, diplomatically. He’s not entirely wrong – keeping Anders safe is definitely a full time job. Which is why she has two people on it in her absence.

“Fenris is with him,” Hawke says simply, trusting that Cullen will remember the elf.

“I see,” Cullen says, and Hawke thinks he might even be impressed.

Voices drift up to them from the courtyard, and Cullen hurries over, drawn by some instinct. Hawke looks down to see a small crowd forming – no abominations in sight, so she relaxes, but Cullen sighs. "Threnn again,” he mutters to himself. He turns, gives Hawke an apologetic smile. “Business, I’m afraid.”

“See you around, Cullen,” she says, and he nods. As he rushes down the stairs, Hawke fishes out her stolen apple and has a bite. He might be glad she didn’t bring company, but Hawke isn’t. This Inquisition isn’t hers, and the companionship she can feel all around is nothing she can be a part of. Not without letting people get to know her – and in so, what her part in all of this is. No. That can’t be allowed to happen. She shakes her head, and wanders back to her less-than-secret hideout to write another letter that might not ever get read. Even that helps, a little at least. And maybe after, she can go find Varric, and together they will talk about happier times.


End file.
